District Court Latest to Find Mailbox Rule Supplanted By Regulations

December 21, 2021 by 1 Comment

The story is familiar: a taxpayer or their practitioner allegedly mails a refund claim before the statute of limitations has expired. The IRS never receives the claim. The mailing was not done by registered or certified mail, nor by authorized private delivery service.  Eventually the taxpayer or their practitioner checks on the supposedly filed claim only to discover that IRS has no record of receiving it.  The taxpayer learns of this after the SOL has expired, so when they mail a supposed copy of the earlier claim or new claim, IRS rejects it as untimely.

These are the facts from Crispino v US , a case out of a federal district court in New Jersey.  The case sweeps in some important administrative law principles, including Chevron and the Brand X doctrine.

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The underlying tax issue stems from a rollover of an IRA. On their 2009 return the Crispinos reported it as tax-free; IRS examined the return and concluded the rollover was taxable. It resulted in an additional $134,000 of assessed tax liability. IRS collected the assessment through two levies in June of 2013.

The Crispinos disagreed with the IRS’s characterization of the IRA transfer. The opinion states that their “tax agent” Minelli asserted in a deposition that that he mailed a refund claim using a postage label printed from a Stamps.com postage meter on April 15, 2015.  Having heard nothing about the claim, Minelli also testified that at some point in 2015 he checked on the claim’s status and learned that the IRS did not have a record of receiving it. In November of 2015, Minelli mailed a copy of the supposedly earlier filed claim. On December 31, 2015 IRS mailed a disallowance on the basis that the claim was untimely because it was filed beyond two years of the tax’s payment.

In December of 2017 the Crispinos filed a complaint seeking a refund of the $134,000. The complaint alleged that they timely filed the claim. The US filed a motion for summary judgment alleging that the claim was untimely.

The issue in the case tees up the common law mailbox rule and regulations that expressly overturn that rule. The regs provide that Section 7502 is the only way to prove that documents that IRS never receives were actually mailed.

This is important because a statutory tax-filing requirement generally can be satisfied only by actual, physical delivery. Section 7502 provides an exception to the physical delivery rule if a document is postmarked before the deadline and received after the deadline. In addition, sending the document via registered or certified mail, or with an authorized private delivery service, establishes that the document was in fact received even if the document never was received or the IRS has no record of receiving it.

The issue as to whether a taxpayer can introduce extrinsic evidence to prove mailing in the absence of using a 7502-proscribed method or whether Section 7502 was the exclusive way to prove mailing has been contested over the years. Some circuits said yes; others said no. The Third Circuit, where an appeal in this case would lie, had come down in favor of allowing a taxpayer to prove mailing beyond what Congress established in 7502.

In 2004, IRS issued proposed now finalized regs that purported to resolve the split. The regulation establishes that absent delivery a taxpayer can only rely on 7502 to prove mailing. The reg reads: 

Other than direct proof of actual delivery, proof of proper use of registered or certified mail, and proof of proper use of a duly designated [private delivery service] as provided for by paragraph (e)(2)(ii) of this section, are the exclusive means to establish prima facie evidence of delivery of a document to the agency, officer, or office with which the document is required to be filed. No other evidence of a postmark or of mailing will be prima facie evidence of delivery or raise a presumption that the document was delivered.

The Crispinos challenged the regulation’s validity. Under Chevron Step One, the district court concluded that the language in 7502 “d[id] not direct a result” as to whether the statute displaced the mailbox rule. Under Step Two, the district court, citing the 9th Circuit’s analysis in Baldwin v US (a case Carl Smith discussed in Ninth Circuit Holds Reg. Validly Overrules Case Law; Disallows Parol Evidence of Timely Mailing) found that the regulation’s interpretation was reasonable:

[T]he mere fact that dueling principles of statutory interpretation support opposing constructions of a statute does not prove, without more, that the agency’s interpretation is unreasonable.” It is possible for an agency’s construction to be reasonable “even if another, equally permissible construction of the statute could also be upheld.

Should Chevron even play a role if prior circuit court precedent held in favor of the common law rule? The Crispinos argued that pre-regulation Third Circuit precedent that allowed extrinsic evidence to prove mailing controlled. This brings in the so-called Brand X doctrine, which provides that, a “prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.” Nat’l Cable & Telecomms. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967, 982 (2005). The district court concluded, as did the Ninth Circuit in Baldwin, that prior taxpayer-friendly appellate law precedent on the issue did not mean “that its interpretation of § 7502 followed from the unambiguous terms of the statute.”

As an aside, for readers who would like to dig deeper in the Brand X issue, check out Kristin Hickman’s excellent Notice & Comment blog post,  Justice Thomas, Brand X, and Baldwin, where she discusses Justice Thomas’ dissent from the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in Baldwin, interesting in part because Thomas authored the Brand X opinion that he has later questioned.

The taxpayers also argued that the regulation impermissibly conflicts with Rule 406 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Rule 406 provides that 

[e]vidence of a person’s habit or an organization’s routine practice may be admitted to prove that on a particular occasion the person or organization acted in accordance with the habit or routine practice. The court may admit this evidence regardless of whether it is corroborated or whether there was an eyewitness.

Brushing this off, the court stated that the regs make habit evidence less relevant but does not preclude the introduction of that evidence.

A final argument the taxpayers made concerned the IRS’s application of the levy proceeds to the assessed liability. In addition to the 2009 year at issue in the case, there were older assessments. The Crispinos argued that the IRS should have applied the levy proceeds to those earlier years; that would have presumably  allowed the later filed “copy” of the original claim to have been made within the two-year SOL.  Unfortunately for the Crispinos for involuntary payments such as levy proceeds, the IRS is free to allocate the payments as it sees fit.

The Crispinos are out of luck, at least insofar as getting a court to consider the claim’s merits. Whether they have a cause of action against their practitioner is another matter.  The case is yet another reminder that if one is snail mailing something important to the IRS, it is worth the extra time and money to mail it in a way that eliminates any risk of non-delivery.

Filed Under: Chevron Deference, refund claim, Timely Mailing

In Altera Reply Brief, Taxpayer Doubles Down on Flawed Argument That the Government Changed Its Tune.

June 11, 2020 by 3 Comments

We welcome back guest bloggers Susan C. Morse and Stephen E. Shay.  They bring us a further update on the efforts of the taxpayer in the Altera case to have the Supreme Court accept the case for argument.  Keith

Previously we blogged here (crossposted at Yale JREG Notice & Comment) about the government’s May 14 brief in opposition to the taxpayer’s petition for certiorari in Altera v. Commissioner. On June 1,  Altera replied to the government’s brief, as explained here by Chris Walker. The case has been distributed for a Supreme Court conference later in June.

The Altera reply brief doubles down on an argument that the government brief has already persuasively dispatched: that Treasury gave the impression during the rulemaking process that comparability analysis – i.e., the analysis of comparable transactions between unrelated parties – was relevant to the determination of an arm’s length result under the transfer pricing regulation at issue, and that then the government changed its tune.

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First, some background to level-set for any new readers. In its cert petition, the taxpayer asked the Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit decision upholding a 2003 amendment to an existing tax regulation governing intra-group cost-sharing arrangements for the development of intangible property. (We submitted amicus briefs on behalf of the government to the Ninth Circuit in earlier stages of this litigation here (with coauthors Leandra Lederman and Clint Wallace), here and here.)

The regulation conditions the benefits of a qualified cost sharing arrangement, or QCSA, on including stock-based compensation deductions related to developing intangible property in the pool of costs to be shared. If this (and other) QCSA conditions are met, the cost-sharing party — typically an offshore subsidiary of a U.S. multinational firm — owns a share of the rights in intangible property, even though this intangible property is often developed within the United States. Allowing an offshore subsidiary to own a share of intangible property means that a U.S. multinational firm can attribute some profit from intangibles to the offshore subsidiary. This in turn means that the U.S. multinational firm can avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax on some of its profit.

Altera proposes that the Supreme Court should take this case because it is an opportunity to place limits on an inappropriate exercise of administrative agency power. The taxpayer’s cert petition argues that Treasury did not provide a reasoned explanation for the regulation as required under  State Farm, in light of evidence cited by commenters that unrelated parties to similar types of arrangements did not share stock-based compensation costs; that the government in litigation engaged in post hoc rationalization to defend the regulation, in violation of Chenery I; and that the Ninth Circuit accorded Chevron deference to a procedurally defective regulation.

The government in response observed that the taxpayer conflates the arm’s length standard with comparability analysis. It explained that the government has maintained a consistent argument throughout the rulemaking process and this litigation.  That is, the government has consistently maintained that the 2003 regulation’s rejection of comparability analysis as a means of determining an arm’s-length result in this limited context is consistent with both the “commensurate with income” language of the statute adopted in 1986 and the accompanying legislative history.

The core of Altera’s argument is that the government surprised taxpayers and tax advisers by making a “sea change in tax law without providing any notice of the change or opportunity to comment on it” (Reply Br. 1) and by taking a “new position” in litigation (Reply Br. 2) about the meaning of the arm’s length standard.  Altera’s reply brief states this claim in at least three ways. None hold up.

The first thing Altera claims is that “The arm’s length standard has a settled meaning: A transaction meets the arm’s length standard if it is consistent with evidence of how unrelated parties behave in comparable arm’s length transactions.” (Reply Br. 5) Altera may wish that this sentence stated doctrinal transfer pricing tax law, but it does not. As the government’s brief in opposition to the cert petition correctly explains, Altera’s statement conflates the arm’s length standard with comparability analysis. Comparability analysis is not a predicate for determining an arm’s length result. One clear indication of that reality is the residual profit split transfer pricing method contained in regulations promulgated in 1994.

The second claim Altera makes is that the government initially suggested that comparability analysis is relevant to the determination of an arm’s-length result under the regulation at issue in this case, but then changed its mind. This is also incorrect. As the government’s brief explains, Treasury promulgated the 2003 amendment to make explicit what it had consistently argued was implicit in the prior (1995) cost-sharing regulation: that QCSA stock-based compensation costs must be shared to produce an arm’s-length result, without regard to evidence of allegedly comparable transactions. And it consistently pointed to the commensurate-with-income language of the statute and the related legislative history to support its position. It referred to commensurate-with-income both in the 2002 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and in the 2003 Preamble.

This government’s position in this regard has been at the heart of a longstanding and well-known disagreement between taxpayers and the government. In 2002, lawyers at Baker & McKenzie explained the already-long history, in a comment to the proposed regulations written on behalf of Software Finance and Tax Executives Council:

On audit, in Advance Pricing Agreement negotiations, in docketed Tax Court cases, in published field service advice, and in speeches by Service officials … the Service has taken the position that stock-based compensation … must be included in related parties’ cost sharing pools. … Taxpayers have steadfastly and vehemently disagreed[, … absent] any evidence that unrelated parties … share stock option “costs” in their own cost sharing pools. 

The third claim that Altera makes is that taxpayers did not realize that the government was promulgating a rule that did not rest on comparables and were caught by surprise. It writes that “none of the companies, industry groups, or tax professionals that participated in the rulemaking noticed” (Reply Br. 2) that the 2003 amendment made evidence of allegedly comparable uncontrolled transactions not determinative of an arm’s length result in this context. This claim also does not hold up.  Indeed, the amended regulation itself – in both its proposed and final form – unequivocally states that a QCSA will achieve an arm’s-length result “if, and only if,” the parties share all development-related costs (including stock-based compensation costs) in proportion to anticipated benefits.

In written submissions and at the 2002 hearing to consider the proposed regulation, commenters certainly realized that the regulation was not based on evidence of comparables. A representative for the American Electronics Association stated that the regulation identified an arm’s-length result “by fiat,” implicitly acknowledging that the government had rejected a comparables-based inquiry. A Fenwick & West partner explained that the regulation “deem[ed] a result to be arm’s length without providing any evidence.” A tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers noted the perception that the amendment “seem[s] contrary to the arm’s length standard as evidenced by actual transactions ….”  The rest of the regulatory record is consistent. Commenters understood. Taxpayers and tax advisers knew exactly what Treasury was doing.

Altera says it is making an administrative law argument, but it is really interested in a tax policy outcome. The asserted “immense prospective importance” (Reply Br. 4) is illusory. Even if the Court were to grant the petition and then hold that the 2003 amendment is procedurally defective, Treasury could simply re-promulgate the rule without substantive change but with a more detailed explanation. As for past tax years, Altera’s and similarly-situated companies’ financial statements have already incorporated the possibility that corporate income tax will be due based on compliance with the regulation. The real importance of the case for taxpayers lies in the hope that the Supreme Court goes beyond the administrative law issue and expresses a pro-taxpayer view as to the merits. But this tax issue is not presented.

Rather, the cert petition raises a procedural administrative law issue. It works for the taxpayer only if the government changed its tune. But to the contrary, the government has been singing the same tune for two decades or more.

The government did not surprise taxpayers and tax advisers with never-before-seen interpretations of the arm’s length standard. The government consistently explained that evidence of allegedly comparable transactions is not determinative of an arm’s-length result in this context. It consistently referred to the commensurate-with-income statutory language and legislative intent in support of its position. The government has been faithful to its argument and explanation since before the 2003 amendment and continuing through every stage of this litigation. There has been no surprise or change of course. Rather, this case involves the government making the same argument and explanation, over and over again. 

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Chevron Deference Tagged With: ,

Pending Cert Petition in Altera: Tax Law in an Administrative Law Wrapper

May 22, 2020 by 2 Comments

Susan Morse & Stephen Shay return to discuss the Altera case. This piece is cross posted at JREG’s Notice & Comment blog. Keith

Each day of the COVID crisis we see unprecedented administrative action to respond to the pandemic. At the same time, litigants continue to ask courts to consider whether administrative agencies have exceeded their authority, sometimes relying on claims of deficient process. One such case is Altera v. Commissioner, in which the taxpayer filed a cert petition that asks the Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit decision upholding a tax regulation. The government submitted its brief in response on May 14, and the Court will presumably consider the case in conference before its summer recess. The taxpayer has not filed a reply as of this writing.

In its brief, the government stays squarely on the administrative law playing field laid out by the taxpayer’s petition. The government’s reply takes on – and, we think, successfully defeats – the core premise that underlies the taxpayer’s administrative law arguments.

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In 2015, Altera won a unanimous decision in the Tax Court, which invalidated a 2003 regulation as arbitrary and capricious under State Farm. Then the government won in the Ninth Circuit before the original three-judge panel in 2018 (withdrawn because of the death of Judge Reinhardt), before a revised three-judge panel in 2019, and when the Ninth Circuit denied the taxpayer’s request for a rehearing en banc in 2019. We contributed amicus briefs [here (with coauthors Leandra Lederman and Clint Wallace), here and here] on behalf of the government before the Ninth Circuit, and have blogged previously about the case here and here. In February, the taxpayer submitted a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court.

The tax issue in Altera involves a final Treasury regulation promulgated in 2003. The reg applies to qualified cost-sharing agreements, or QCSAs, made between U.S. firms and their offshore subsidiaries. A QCSA requires an offshore subsidiary to pay its share of the costs of developing IP. If QCSA requirements are met, the offshore subsidiary owns non-U.S. rights to intangible property developed by its U.S. parent company for tax purposes. Then the firm can shelter resulting offshore profit from U.S. tax. As relevant here, the 2003 regulation at issue in Altera conditions the favorable tax treatment available for QCSAs on the inclusion of stock-based compensation costs in the pool of shared costs.  

Technology and other multinational firms that use stock option compensation (and use strategies to shift profit from intellectual property across borders) have had an understandable and longstanding interest in this issue. An appendix to Altera’s cert petition lists 82 companies that noted the Altera issue in their public financial statements. One entry alone – that of Alphabet, Inc. – reports $4.4 billion at stake.

We think the regulation gets it right as a matter of tax policy. It properly prevents stock-based compensation deductions from reducing U.S. taxable income when these expenses support foreign profit. The regulation falls securely under the Commissioner’s statutory discretion (under I.R.C. Section 482) and responsibility to ensure clear reflection of income. It squares with modern financial accounting rules. And it aligns with OECD and other international efforts to combat base erosion and profit shifting to low-tax jurisdictions.

But the hook in the cert petition is not the tax issue. It is an administrative law issue. The taxpayer hopes to persuade four justices that Altera is an attractive opportunity to rein in an administrative agency’s power and further limit the case law that supports administrative agency discretion. Perhaps it appears particularly juicy because the administrative agency at issue is the Treasury, given the complicated history and relationship between Treasury regulations and administrative law. Indeed, the regulation in this case was promulgated well before the Supreme Court held, in its 2011 Mayo case, that Chevron deference (rather than National Muffler review) applies to tax regulations just as it applies to other federal regulations.

The taxpayer’s administrative procedure argument includes two main claims. The first is that Treasury did not provide a reasoned explanation for the regulation and that the regulation was therefore arbitrary and capricious under State Farm. The second is that the government engaged in post hoc rationalization to defend the regulation, in violation of Chenery I. (A third claim, derivative of the first two, asks whether, assuming a regulation is held procedurally defective, a court may nevertheless uphold it under Chevron.)

Five out of six filings submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of the taxpayer – including the primary cert petition and four out of five amicus briefs – hang their respective hats on a single premise. This premise is that Treasury first suggested that comparability analysis was relevant under the stock-based compensation QCSA regulation, and then Treasury broke its word. The government’s brief takes this premise head-on and, we think, persuasively disproves it.

Altera’s petition claims that in 2002 and 2003, “the government never said it was … adopting a new approach to cost-sharing” (8) and that the rationale that the “commensurate with the income” language supported the new approach “appeared nowhere in the rulemaking record.” (10-11) Amicus briefs argue that the government advances “a new statutory interpretation” in litigation (Chamber of Commerce 16), describe the government’s allegedly “newfound litigation position that comparables are irrelevant” (Cisco 11), assert a “transparent post hoc rationalization” (National Association of Manufacturers 15) and claim that there would have been comments on “the applicability and scope of the arm’s length standard” in notice-and-comment if taxpayers had only been aware that the government meant to make comparability analysis irrelevant to the determination of an arm’s-length result for stock-based compensation costs in the QCSA context. (PricewaterhouseCoopers 16).

Interestingly, the fifth of five amicus contributions supporting Altera – a brief filed by a group of former foreign tax officials – paints a picture of continuity, rather than change, in arguments made by Treasury and the IRS. It acknowledges that both in 2002 and 2003 and also in litigation before the Ninth Circuit, the government “ignor[ed] … potentially comparable transactions” and simultaneously “claim[ed] that its approach comported with the arm’s length standard.” (9-10) 

The government argues as follows in its brief in opposition to Altera’s cert petition: The taxpayer’s arguments “conflate (i) the arm’s length standard … and (ii) the use of comparability analysis” and “misunderstan[d] the relationship between the two concepts.” (19) In its rulemaking, the government did not suggest that empirical analysis and comparability were relevant to the determination of an arm’s length result in this context. Rather, the internal method adopted by the regulation is “an alternative to comparability analysis as a means of achieving an arm’s length result,”(20) consistent with the statute, as “Section 482 does not require any analysis of identified comparable transactions between unrelated parties.” (21) Moreover, the rulemaking and litigation record shows a constant commitment to a method that is not based on evidence of comparables. The government’s rulemaking record, as well as its arguments in litigation, consistently references the “commensurate with income” statutory language added in 1986. (24) So the “commensurate with income” argument made in litigation was not new either.

The government’s narrative gets this right. As the government’s brief explains, the regulatory history – not to mention the plain language of the regulation describing an arm’s-length result in this context – makes clear that interested taxpayers and tax advisers knew that “the proposed regulation would make any evidence of comparable transactions irrelevant” in the context of QCSAs. (22) Taxpayers certainly understood the proposed regs’ departure from comparability analysis. They just didn’t agree with it. Indeed, the battle lines over comparability analysis in the context of stock-based compensation costs were already clearly drawn, well before Treasury issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2002. As the Software Finance and Tax Executives Council explained during the 2002 notice and comment period: 

On audit, in Advance Pricing Agreement negotiations, in docketed Tax Court cases, in published field service advice, and in speeches by Service officials … the Service has taken the position that stock-based compensation … must be included in related parties’ cost sharing pools. … Taxpayers have steadfastly and vehemently disagreed[, … absent] any evidence that unrelated parties … share stock option “costs” in their own cost sharing pools. 

This disagreement between taxpayers and the government was a tax policy dispute over the role of comparables in transfer pricing between related parties. Taxpayers argued that the arm’s length principle required comparables, even in the specific case covered by the QCSA regulation. The government consistently took the opposite position, beginning well before 2002 and continuing through the present cert petition in Altera.

Taxpayers may still disagree with the government on the tax policy issue. But that ship has sailed. Indeed, there are other examples of transfer pricing methods that do not rely on comparable transactions. One is the 1994 promulgation of the residual profit split method, also contained in a final regulation issued under I.R.C. Section 482.  

The issue before the Supreme Court is an administrative law issue. A necessary premise of Altera’s argument is that Treasury started with, but then abandoned, a commitment to empirical comparables analysis for its rule covering stock-based compensation in QCSAs. And as the government explains, this premise does not hold up.

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Chevron Deference Tagged With: ,

Review of 2019 (Part 1)

December 26, 2019 by Leave a Comment

In the last two weeks of 2019 we are running material which we have primarily covered during the year but which discusses the important developments during this year.  As we reflect on what has transpired during the year, let’s also think about how we can improve the tax procedure process going forward.  We welcome your comments on the most important developments in 2019 related to tax procedure.

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Important IRS Announcements

CC Notice 2020-002 – Contacting IRS attorney by email

This recently-issued Chief Counsel notice announces a process for email communications between practitioners and Chief Counsel attorneys. Formerly, communication with Chief Counsel attorneys was difficult, due to internal restrictions on emailing taxpayer information. Under the new notice, Chief Counsel employees can now exchange email with taxpayers and practitioners using encrypted email methods. This new policy will likely prove helpful for practitioners, who can now make quicker progress in working with Chief Counsel to resolve Tax Court litigation or to prepare for trial.

CC Notice 2019-006 – Deference

This notice is a policy statement, warning Treasury and the IRS about the current judicial state of play on deference to agency regulations. It states that Chief Counsel attorneys will no longer argue that courts should apply Chevron or Auer deference to sub-regulatory guidance, such as revenue rulings, revenue procedures, or other notices. This guidance should be read in conjunction with the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Kisor v. Wilkie, in which the Court scaled back the applicability of Auer deference and indicated a willingness to rethink the scope of agency deference.  As tax lawyers it’s easy to overlook important administrative law decisions such as Kisor, but we all need to recognize the importance of such decisions on how to practice before the IRS. 

See Keith Fogg, Notices on Communicating with IRS, Chief Counsel’s Office and Deference, Procedurally Taxing (Oct. 28, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/notices-on-communicating-with-irs-chief-counsels-office-and-deference/#comments

Altera, Good Fortune, & Baldwin – Deference to regulations

The 9th Circuit recently reversed the Tax Court’s decision that the transfer pricing regulations at issue in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner, 926 F.3d 1061 (9th Cir. 2019), rev’g 145 T.C. 91 (2015) were invalid because they lacked a “reasonable explanation” as required by the Supreme Court in State Farm.  A majority of the Ninth Circuit concluded that Treasury made “clear enough” its decision by including “citations to legislative history” that the dissent said were “cryptic.” The 9th Circuit recently denied Altera’s petition rehearing en banc over a vigorous dissent from three judges, making the case a possible vehicle for certiorari and the latest Supreme Court reexamining of administrative deference.

In contrast, a decision by the D.C. Circuit in Good Fortune Shipping v. Commissioner, 897 F.3d 256 (D.C. Cir. 2018), rev’g 148 T.C. 262 (2017), held invalid regulations that narrowed an excise tax exemption for corporations owned by shareholders in certain countries.  The regulations said ownership of bearer shares could not be used to qualify for the exemption.  The preamble to the regulations suggested the rule was needed because of the difficulty of reliably tracking the location of the owners of bearer shares, but the court observed that other regulations issued by the agency suggested that the location of the owners of bearer shares were becoming easier to track over time.

On the other hand, in Baldwin v. United States, 921 F.3d 836 (9th Cir. 2019), reh’g denied, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 18968 (9th Cir. June 25, 2019), petition for cert. filed, 2019 WL 4673331 (U.S. Sept. 23, 2019) (No. 19-402), the Ninth Circuit held that a claim for refund was late because the common law mailbox rule was supplanted by Treas. Reg. § 301.7502-1(e)(2)(i).  Because the Ninth Circuit had previously held the statutory rule (IRC § 7502) provided a safe-harbor that supplements the common-law rule, the district court held the regulations invalid.  Under the Supreme Court’s holding in Brand X, “[a] court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.”  In this case, the regulations trumped the Ninth Circuit’s prior interpretation of IRC § 7502 because it said its earlier decision was filling a statutory gap.  Litigators have indicated this case may be the perfect vehicle for the Supreme Court to consider overruling Chevron or Brand X. 

See Andrew Velarde, Can the Humble Mailbox Rule Bring Monumental Changes to Chevron? 94 Tax Notes Int’l 412 (Apr. 29, 2019) (noting that Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito, Breyer, and Chief Justice John Roberts have arguably expressed reservations about an overly broad reading of Chevron).

Taxpayer First Act (“TFA”)

Innocent Spouse changes/Effect of 6015 (e)(7)

The TFA made perhaps unintentional but significant changes regarding the Tax Court’s review of appeals of adverse innocent spouse determinations.  The change is codified at 6015(e)(7) Such appeals will be reviewed de novo (codifying previous Tax Court precedent). This part of the new law regarding the standard for review is uncontroversial and will not result in changes for those seeking innocent spouse relief; however, the legislation changes the scope of review.  Previously, the innocent spouse proceeding went forward with no restrictions on the information the taxpayer could present in the Tax Court.  Now, the scope of review is limited to the administrative record plus the Tax Court can consider “newly discovered or previously unavailable” evidence. While these provisions may seem innocuous, they also may lead to significant new disadvantages for taxpayers. For one, innocent spouse cases present uniquely burdensome evidentiary issues for taxpayers. Presenting evidence of spousal abuse, for example, may be difficult, especially if police or medical reports do not exist in the administrative record. Meanwhile, the one exception to the administrative record, “newly discovered or previously unavailable” evidence, remains ill-defined in the statute and may prove to be a source of confusion for taxpayers and practitioners. Important evidence that a taxpayer may already possess – thus not making it “newly discovered or previously unavailable” – but didn’t include in the administrative record could potentially be excluded. For pro se taxpayers in particular, who may not be aware of the relevance of certain documents when making their case, this is a particular challenge.

The first few Tax Court cases implicating 6015(e)(7) have begun to emerge and may provide more clarity. One potential judicial solution to the issue would be for the Tax Court to remand cases with under-developed records back to the IRS.

Carlton Smith, Should the Tax Court Allow Remands in Light of the Taxpayer First Act Innocent Spouse Provisions?, Procedurally Taxing (Oct. 17, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/should-the-tax-court-allow-remands-in-light-of-the-taxpayer-first-act-innocent-spouse-provisions/

Keith Fogg, First Tax Court Opinions Mentioning Section 6015(e)(7), Procedurally Taxing (Oct. 16, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/first-tax-court-opinions-mentioning-section-6015e7/

Christine Speidel, Taxpayer First Act Update: Innocent Spouse Tangles Begin, Procedurally Taxing (Oct. 10, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/taxpayer-first-act-update-innocent-spouse-tangles-begin/

Steve Milgrom, Innocent Spouse Relief and the Administrative Record, Procedurally Taxing (July 9, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/innocent-spouse-relief-and-the-administrative-record/

Carlton Smith, Congress Set to Enact Only Now-Unneeded Innocent Spouse Fixes, Part 2, Procedurally Taxing (Apr. 4, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/congress-set-to-enact-only-now-unneeded-innocent-spouse-fixes-part-2/

Carlton Smith, Congress Set to Enact Only Now-Unneeded Innocent Spouse Fixes, Part 1, Procedurally Taxing (Apr. 3, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/congress-set-to-enact-only-now-unneeded-innocent-spouse-fixes-part-1/

Ex parte in TFA and CDP

The TFA does not specifically address ex parte communications between appeals and examinations or collections personnel. However, it does codify appeals’ status as an independent office, which may further strengthen arguments against ex parte communication. The currently applicable ex parte restrictions are found in Rev. Proc. 2012-18, which sets forth extensive guidance on permissible and impermissible forms of ex parte communications.

 In CDP proceedings, ex parte communications can potentially occur between appeals officers and revenue officers via the transmission of the administrative file to Appeals. Rev. Proc. 2012-18 prohibits the inclusion of material that “would be prohibited if . . . communicated to Appeals separate and apart from the administrative file.” But as demonstrated by a recent case, Stewart v. Commissioner, this may be a high bar for taxpayers to clear in challenging such communications. In Stewart, the revenue officer included contemporaneous notes in the file that indicated the taxpayer’s representation was somewhat uncooperative during a field meeting. The Tax Court declined to accept the taxpayer’s argument that the notes were prejudicial and ruled in favor of the Commissioner. 

See Keith Fogg, Application of Ex Parte Provisions in Collection Due Process Hearing, Procedurally Taxing (Sep. 19, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/application-of-ex-parte-provisions-in-collection-due-process-hearing/

Taxpayer protection program

Identify fraud has been a consistent and significant problem for the IRS. But the Service’s new procedures for protecting taxpayer information may be unduly burdensome, particularly for taxpayers who need representation with time-sensitive matters. For those representing taxpayers whose returns are flagged as potential victims of identity theft, the process of authenticating identity is difficult and requires knowledge of taxpayer personal information that may not be readily available, such as place of birth or parent’s middle name. The burden is such that it may even implicate the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TBOR)’s “right to retain representation”. By de facto requiring that the taxpayer actively participate in the identity verification process, the taxpayer is effectively deprived of their right to have their representative act for them in dealings with the IRS.

See Barbara Heggie, Taxpayer Representation Program Sidesteps Right to Representation, Procedurally Taxing (Oct. 3, 2019), https://procedurallytaxing.com/taxpayer-protection-program-sidesteps-right-to-representation/

VITA referrals to LITCs

Especially relevant for our purposes, the TFA “encourages” VITA programs to advise participating taxpayers about the availability of LITCs and refer them to clinics. This is a helpful step, which strengthens the connection between VITA and LITCs and may help inform eligible taxpayers of the existence of their local LITC.

Filed Under: Auer deference, Chevron Deference, ex parte, TBOR, Timely Mailing

Ninth Circuit Denies Request for En Banc Hearing by Altera

November 12, 2019 by 1 Comment

We have written about Altera v. Commissioner on many occasions because it was such an important decision by the Tax Court and because of the interesting twists in the case at the circuit level.  We have written many posts on this case.  You can find some here, here, here, here and here.  Today, the Ninth Circuit has rejected the request for an en banc hearing.  The rejection of the request is here.  Three judges dissented from the decision not to hear the case en banc.  This leaves Altera with the decision to press on to the Supreme Court or to accept the decision.  For those not following the case, the issue concerns the manner in which the IRS promulgated the regulations.  The Tax Court was so uncomfortable with the process that it struck down the applicable regulations in a unanimous vote of the full court.  The Ninth Circuit panel reversed the Tax Court in a 2-1 vote.

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Chevron Deference

Review of Hemel and Kamin’s The False Promise of Presidential Indexation

August 21, 2019 by 6 Comments

In The False Promise of Presidential Indexation, which was recently published in the Yale Journal of Regulation, Professors Daniel Hemel and David Kamin have written an important article that considers whether the executive branch has the power to index capital gains for inflation.  In addition to critiquing the measure as a matter of policy, the authors make a persuasive case that Treasury, absent additional legislation, does not have the authority on its own to index capital gains.

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The article raises the question as to which institutional actor in our government should be responsible for generating a change in law that would have a major impact on both the fisc and the tax system.  This question periodically appears in tax administration; longtime readers of the blog may connect this to other issues; for example, in Loving v IRS a DC district court opinion affirmed by the DC Circuit held that without explicit Congressional authority the IRS could not administratively require hundreds of thousands of previously unlicensed preparers to take a competency test and be responsible for continuing education requirements. 

The article provides current and historical context for indexing capital gains, including a 2018 statement by President Trump that he is “thinking about it very strongly” and a discussion of the last time that there seemed to be serious executive consideration of this proposal, in the waning days of the first Bush administration.  The idea seems to be gaining momentum, as  reports from this summer indicate that President Trump has put this issue on the front burner.

The issue of capital gains indexing is really an issue of basis indexing, an issue that would apply to both capital assets and ordinary assets. Since as the authors point out over 98% of the gain reported was on capital assets (2015 figures), the shorthand way to refer to this issue is on the power to index capital gains. The technical issue turns on whether Treasury could index basis for inflation through regulations. 

The authors discuss why at the time of the proposal’s earlier consideration in the 1990’s  there was general (though not uniform) consensus that Treasury did not have the authority to unilaterally index basis for inflation, including legal opinions from Treasury’s General Counsel and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). As I gear up again to teach basic tax for the fall semester, as I tell my students at Villanova, it is crucial to start with the Internal Revenue Code when thinking about this issue. Section 1012(a) (first enacted as part of the Revenue Act of 1918), says that “[t]he basis of property shall be the cost of such property.” 

The article (starting at page 707) nicely summarizes the main reasons why in 1992 the OLC concluded that “cost” was not ambiguous, looking at its dictionary definition, early Treasury practice, court decisions, and other IRC provisions. Absent finding any ambiguity in the term cost, OLC concluded that cost meant the price paid for an item, and Treasury could not on its own change the meaning of it by regulation.

Hemel and Kamin’s article then discusses developments since the first Bush presidency, including case law outside tax that some proponents have suggested supports finding that cost is indeed an ambiguous term, general administrative law developments, and the tax law’s place within administrative law.  

As to general administrative law, the authors persuasively argue that developments since the early 1990’s make it even harder to support a regulation based capital gains indexing. A key part of the discussion is the authors’ discussion of the “major questions” doctrine, where a number of Supreme Court decisions deny Chevron deference to issues that have deep economic and social significance in the absence of clear Congressional direction to agencies. As the authors note, 

[t]he advent of the major questions doctrine is the most significant post-1992 doctrinal development bearing upon the legality of the presidential indexation proposal.  And it does not bode well for the idea. While the exact boundaries of the major questions doctrine remain unclear, there are compelling arguments that the decision to index basis for inflation or not should qualify as a major question.

As support for this type of change being considered within the major questions doctrine, the authors point to estimates that peg the cost of indexing to be in the magnitude of $10-20 billion a year. They also discuss Supreme Court cases warning against reading delegation into cryptic legislative language:

As Justice Scalia wrote for the Court in Whitman v. American Trucking Association, citing to both MCIand Brown &Williamson: “Congress . . . does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms . . . . [I]t does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.” And as we have emphasized, indexing basis for inflation would indeed be an elephant.

Drilling down deeper, the authors discuss general Chevron developments and the subtle but important difference in now Justice Kavanaugh’s take on the major questions doctrine-developments that they argue make the case for indexing even weaker. While now Justice Kavanaugh (who authored the DC Circuit Loving opinion, which in part relied on the major case doctrine as justification for concluding that IRS acted outside its authority in its efforts to require mandatory testing and education for unlicensed preparers) is just one member of the Court, Hemel and Kamin also discuss the general discomfort that many of the justices feel for Chevron, including their take that the current “judicial zeitgeist…is decidedly anti-Chevron.”

The authors also address somewhat more difficult questions when they consider whether any party would have standing to challenge regulations. After all, the regulations appear to only help taxpayers, and as the authors note, scholars such as Larry Zelenak considering the issue in the 1990’s felt that without there being a disadvantaged taxpayer, it would be difficult to find a party with standing to challenge the regulations. The authors again look to post 1990’s developments to sidestep the need for individual taxpayer harm, including the possibility that Congress or states could have standing to sue. In addition, the authors creatively argue that indexing would harm some, including brokers, who would bear additional costs to comply with reporting obligations, and taxpayers subject to the charitable deduction cap in Section 170.

Conclusion

The Hemel and Kamin article provides important legal context on this issue. If the Trump administration moves forward with the idea, this article will be required reading for those interested in and likely litigating the issue. Even if the Trump Administration declines to move forward with this idea, given current dysfunction in Washington and the strained relations between the branches, I suspect that there will be even greater temptation to use the IRS to sidestep Congress to achieve policy objectives that have at best a tenuous link to the statutory language. As such, the legal issues Hemel and Kamin discuss are generally important for tax administration, and will likely resurface even when this particular debate goes away, or perhaps hibernates for another generation to consider and likely discount.

Filed Under: Chevron Deference

Ninth Circuit Holds Reg. Validly Overrules Case Law; Disallows Parol Evidence of Timely Mailing

April 18, 2019 by 5 Comments

In Baldwin v. United States, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 11036 (9th Cir. April 16, 2019), in a case of first impression in the appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit has held that a 2011 regulation under section 7502 is valid under the deference rules of Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), and Nat’l Cable & Telecomms. Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967 (2005), and therefore it invalidates all prior case law in some Circuits (including the Ninth) holding that the common law mailbox rule can be used to prove the IRS’ timely receipt of a document by parol evidence. The Circuit reversed the district court and directed it to dismiss the case because the only evidence offered of timely mailing of a Form 1040X refund claim was the testimony of the Baldwins’ employees that they remember timely posting the envelope containing the claim by regular mail months before the claim was due – evidence that is only relevant if the common law mailbox rule still exists in the tax law. I blogged on Baldwin before the oral argument here.

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Facts

Baldwin is a tax refund suit. There, the taxpayers reported a loss on their 2007 income tax return, filed on or before the extended due date of October 15, 2008. They wished to file an amended return for 2005, carrying back the 2007 loss to generate a refund in 2005. Under section 6511(d), this had to be done by filing the amended return within three years of the due date of the return generating the loss – i.e., by October 15, 2011. The taxpayers introduced testimony of their employees that the employees mailed the 2005 amended return by regular mail on June 21, 2011 from a Hartford Post Office to the Andover Service Center. But, the IRS claimed it never received the Form 1040X.

The California district court followed Anderson v. United States, 966 F.2d 487 (9th Cir. 1992), in which the Ninth Circuit had held that the enactment of section 7502 in 1954 did not eliminate the common law mailbox rule and still allowed taxpayers to prove by parol evidence that a document not sent by registered or certified mail or a designated private delivery service was actually mailed and so was presumed to have been received by the IRS prior to the due date. The district court credited the testimony of the employees and held that the refund claim was timely filed. The court later awarded the taxpayers a refund of roughly $167,000 and litigation costs of roughly $25,000.

The DOJ appealed the loss to the Ninth Circuit, where it argued that the suit should have been dismissed because the refund claim was not timely filed. The DOJ argued that in August 2011, the IRS adopted a regulation intended to overrule some Circuit court opinions (including Anderson) that had held that the common law mailbox rule still survived the enactment of section 7502. At least one other Circuit had agreed with Anderson; Estate of Wood v. Commissioner, 909 F.2d 1155 (8th Cir. 1990); but several other Circuits had disagreed and held that the common law mailbox rule did not survive the enactment of section 7502. See Miller v. United States, 784 F.2d 728 (6th Cir. 1986); Deutsch v. Commissioner, 599 F.2d 44 (2d Cir. 1979). See also Sorrentino v. Internal Revenue Service, 383 F.3d 1187 (10th Cir. 2004) (carving out a middle position).

As amended by T.D. 9543 at 76 Fed. Reg. 52,561-52,563 (Aug. 23, 2011), Reg. § 301.7502-1(e)(2)(i) provides, in relevant part:

Other than direct proof of actual delivery, proof of proper use of registered or certified mail, and proof of proper use of a duly designated [private delivery service] . . . are the exclusive means to establish prima facie evidence of delivery of a document to the agency, officer, or office with which the document is required to be filed. No other evidence of a postmark or of mailing will be prima facie evidence of delivery or raise a presumption that the document was delivered.

Ninth Circuit Opinion

The Ninth Circuit began its analysis with a little history: Prior to 1954, there was no timely-mailing-is-timely-filing provision in the Internal Revenue Code. That meant that the only way to timely file a document was for it to arrive at the IRS on or before the due date. At common law, there is a presumption that a properly-mailed envelope will arrive in the ordinary time for mail to go between its origin and destination. At common law, a party could bring in any evidence (including testimony) to show that the envelope likely arrived at the IRS on or before the due date.

In 1954, Congress added section 7502 to the Code. We all think of it as a provision that allows a mailing made on or before the due date to be treated as timely filed, whether or not the IRS receives the document on, before, or after the due date. But, that is not an accurate summary of the provision. In fact, subsection (a) provides, in general, that if a document is delivered to the IRS by the United States mail after the due date, then the date of the United States postmark on the envelope is deemed to be the date of delivery (i.e., filing). Other rules extend the benefits of subsection (a) to designated private delivery services and electronic filing, but only pursuant to regulations. However, subsection (c) also includes a presumption of delivery that applies in the case of use of certified or registered mail: If an envelope is sent certified or registered mail, then (1) the certification or registration is prima facie evidence that the envelope was delivered to the place to which it was addressed and (2) the date of registration or certification is deemed the date of the postmark for purposes of subsection (a).

In Anderson, the Ninth Circuit had held that subsection (c)’s presumption of delivery language (and the regulations thereunder) did not supplant the common law way to prove delivery on or before the due date. Rather, subsection (c) provided only a safe harbor for proof of delivery if certified or registered mail was used. Where ordinary mail was used, there was no statutory provision presuming or denying proof of delivery, so the common law mailbox rule could still operate to allow proof of timely mailing by any evidence.

In Baldwin, the Ninth Circuit noted that under Chevron Step 2, a court must defer to an agency’s interpretation in a regulation if that interpretation is one of the reasonable ways an ambiguous statute could be interpreted. And in Brand X, the Supreme Court held that, unless an appellate court opinion had said that the statute was unambiguous (and therefore Chevron Step 1 would deny any regulatory input), an agency could issue valid regulations overruling that appellate precedent.

In the case of the 2011 regulation under section 7502, the Ninth Circuit in Baldwin held that an interpretation that section 7502 completely supplanted the common law mailbox rule was one of the reasonable interpretations of that statute and that the Ninth Circuit had not, in its Anderson opinion, rested its holding on the unambiguous nature of section 7502’s language. Therefore, under Chevron and Brand X, the regulation barring the use of the common law mailbox rule was valid.

The taxpayers had two arguments that the Ninth Circuit quickly dismissed:

First, the taxpayers argued that there is a rule of construction that makes repeal of common law rules by statute not to be easily implied. With respect to this argument, the Ninth Circuit noted a contrary rule of construction (one that other Circuits had relied on) that when a statute speaks on an issue and makes an exception, that statutory exception eliminates all nonstatutory exceptions. The Ninth Circuit held that the subsection (c) rules presuming delivery in the case of certified or registered mail could benefit by the latter interpretive rule. Thus, these countervailing statutory rules of construction could lead to two different reasonable interpretations of the statute.

Second, the taxpayers argued that the regulation was improperly being applied retroactively, since they had claimed that they mailed the envelope in June 2011, but the regulation was only adopted in August 2011. But, the Ninth Circuit pointed out that the regulation was effective for all documents mailed after September 21, 2004 (the date the regulation was first proposed), and the court did not find that such retroactive effective date violated section 7805(b)(1)(B), which allows the IRS to make its regulations retroactive to the date they are first proposed.

Observations

Several Supreme Court Justices have recently criticized Chevron and Brand X. It is interesting that Judge Watford, who wrote the Baldwin opinion, only predicated the panel’s ruling for the IRS on the basis of reliance on those two opinions. What, then, happens if Chevron and Brand X are overruled? Will the Ninth Circuit’s precedent then revert to Anderson, which allows use of the common law mailbox rule?

Judge Watford also seems to be deliberately vague in his opinion as to the ground on which the district court should dismiss the case on remand. He does not say the dismissal should be for lack of jurisdiction (FRCP 12(b)(1)) or for failure to state a claim (FRCP 12(b)(6)). It would not much matter in this case whether the section 6511 filing deadline were jurisdictional or not, but it might matter in a future case (e.g., one where there was an argument for waiver, forfeiture, or estoppel, but not equitable tolling (see United States v. Brockamp, 519 U.S. 347 (1997) (holding the deadline not subject to equitable tolling, but not discussing whether the deadline is jurisdictional)). Indeed, Judge Watford’s Baldwin opinion really relies on section 7422(a), which requires the filing of a refund claim before a refund suit may be maintained. The opinion states that section 7422(a) also requires a timely claim. In fact, Judge Watford only writes:

The Baldwins then brought this action against the United States in the district court. Although the doctrine of sovereign immunity would ordinarily bar such a suit, the United States has waived its immunity from suit by allowing a taxpayer to file a civil action to recover “any internal-revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected.” 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(1). Under the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), though, no such action may be maintained in any court “until a claim for refund or credit has been duly filed” with the IRS, in accordance with IRS regulations. 26 U.S.C. § 7422(a); see United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 609 (1990). To be “duly filed,” a claim for refund must be filed within the time limit set by law. Yuen v. United States, 825 F.2d 244, 245 (9th Cir. 1987) (per curiam).

Judge Watford is the author of the opinion in Volpicelli v. United States, 777 F.3d 1042 (9th Cir. 2015), which we blogged on here and where I was amicus. In that opinion, he held that the then-9-month filing deadline to bring a wrongful levy suit in district court is not jurisdictional and is subject to equitable tolling under recent Supreme Court case law making filing deadlines now only rarely jurisdictional. Note that his language above from Baldwin does not mention the word “jurisdictional” with regard to section 7422(a)’s requirement. Judge Watford may not be wanting to say that section 7422(a)’s administrative exhaustion requirement is jurisdictional, rather than a nonjurisdictional mandatory claims processing rule possibly subject to waiver, forfeiture, or estoppel. It is true that in Dalm (which he cites only with a “see”), the Supreme Court called the requirements of sections 7422(a) and 6511 jurisdictional with respect to a refund suit, but the reasoning of Dalm does not accord with current Supreme Court case law. In 2016, the Seventh Circuit questioned whether Dalm is still good law, though it did not reach the question, writing:

The Gillespies do not respond to the government’s renewed argument that § 7422(a) is jurisdictional, though we note that the Supreme Court’s most recent discussion of § 7422(a) does not describe it in this manner, see Unites States v. Clintwood Elkhorn Mining Co., 553 U.S. 1, 4-5, 11-12 (2008). And other recent decisions by the Court construe similar prerequisites as claims-processing rules rather than jurisdictional requirements, see, e.g., United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625, 1632-33 (2015) (concluding that administrative exhaustion requirement of Federal Tort Claims Act is not jurisdictional); Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 157 (2010) (concluding that Copyright Act’s registration requirement is not jurisdictional); Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 504 (2006) (concluding that statutory minimum of 50 workers for employer to be subject to Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not jurisdictional). These developments may cast doubt on the line of cases suggesting that § 7422(a) is jurisdictional. See, e.g., United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 601-02 (1990).

Gillespie v. United States, 670 Fed. Appx. 393, 394-395 (7th Cir. 2016) (some citations omitted). It was this passage from Gillespie that the DOJ cited as grounds for its need to file a post-oral argument memorandum of law in Tilden v. Commissioner, 846 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2017), arguing that the section 6213(a) Tax Court deficiency petition filing deadline is jurisdictional and not subject to waiver. The DOJ won that argument in that case, but it is currently before the Ninth Circuit on the issues of jurisdictional and equitable tolling in companion cases on which we previously blogged here.

Filed Under: Chevron Deference, refund claim

Quick Takes: Altera, Senate Finance Committee Testimony on IRS Reform

July 27, 2018 by 1 Comment

I am trying to meet a deadline before a last gasp of summer vacation in California, and I have had a little less time than usual for blogging.  Tax procedure and tax administration developments wait for no one, however, and much has been happening this week. I will briefly discuss and add some links to two major developments: the Altera case and the Senate Finance Committee Subcommittee on Tax and IRS Oversight hearing.

Altera

As I am sure many readers know, the Ninth Circuit reversed the Tax Court in the heavily anticipated case of Altera v Commissioner, a case we have blogged numerous times. The basic holdings in the Ninth Circuit case all involved the broader question as to whether Treasury exceeded “its authority in requiring Altera’s cost-sharing arrangement to include a particular distribution of employee stock compensation costs.”

The Ninth Circuit, in a divided opinion that included now deceased Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the majority, concluded that the Treasury did not. In so doing, it held that Treasury did not violate the APA in its rulemaking, and under Chevron the court deferred to Treasury’s take on the substantive issue of allocation of employee stock compensation costs.

We will have more on this decision in PT. In the meantime, here are some comments on the decision in the blogosgphere:

Dan Shaviro in Start Making Sense trumpets the 9thCircuit getting to the right outcome

Leandra Lederman in The Surly Subgroup, who like Professor Shaviro wrote an amicus arguing for reversal, succinctly summarizes the holding

Jack Townsend, who in his Federal Tax Procedure blog, in addition to linking to his excellent and free tax procedure book offers his take on the case, including his gloss on Chevron and his forecast that if the Supreme Court gets to this one there is a good chance for the Supremes “screwing it up”

Chris Walker at Notice and Comment who expresses unease about the process, especially the aspect of including as part of the majority a judge who passed away prior to the Court’s issuing the opinion

Alan Horowitz at Miller & Chevalier’s Tax Appellate blog, discussing the holding and likely petition for rehearing by the full circuit

Senate Hearing on Tax Administration

The Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommitte on Taxation and IRS Oversight had a hearing yesterday on improving tax administration.

Here is a link to the audio; witnesses, whose written testimony is linked above, were

  • Caroline Bruckner, Managing Director of the Kogod Tax Policy Center at American University ;
  • Phyllis Jo Kubey, Member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents and the IRS Advisory Council ;
  • Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate ;
  • John Sapp, the current Chair of the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee advising the Internal Revenue Service, and
  • Rebecca Thompson, the Project Director of the Taxpayer Opportunity

Senator Portman’s introductory statement is here—in it he notes the 20thanniversary of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, and how he and Senator Cardin recently introduced the Taxpayer First Act(following the House passing its version of legislation).

The National Taxpayer Advocate blogged on the hearing, including her take encouraging “everyone who cares about improving tax administration to watch the hearing and read the testimony submitted.”

Filed Under: Administrative Procedure Act (APA), Chevron Deference
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